Every effective cyber security strategy depends on clearly defined ways to prevent, detect and respond to threats. Security controls sit at the core of the strategy, as they comprise the policies, processes and technologies an organisation uses to identify and reduce cyber risk across its environment.
Problems arise when these controls become too static. The threat landscape is evolving continuously, as do your organisation’s vulnerabilities, which means that security control management must likewise be a dynamic and iterative effort. CISOs are usually the ones who have to carry the burden of making this happen by validating that security controls across the organisation are relevant and still match reality.
The following three tips outline how to approach this challenge in a practical and sustainable way.
Regularly refresh your attack surface map
Security controls exist for only one reason: to protect all of the digital assets that make up the organisation’s attack surface. As soon as your attack surface map becomes outdated, it automatically degrades the value of any controls that are in place.
To make security controls dynamic, attack surface mapping must also become dynamic. Automated scanners should regularly scour the environment for newly exposed assets, configuration changes or previously unknown entry points.
In modern environments, the attack surface is never static. New deployments, APIs and third-party integrations are a common source of new exposure. Without continuous visibility into these changes, security teams resort to making assumptions about what exists in the environment, rather than verified reality. Over time, this gap grows and creates blind spots where assets fall outside the scope of existing controls.
Regularly refreshing the attack surface map allows CISOs to quickly see whether existing controls like firewalls, authentication mechanisms, monitoring systems and other measures are effectively applied where they are needed.
Don’t overlook the risks posed by partner organisations
CISOs spend most of their time thinking about securing internal systems, and rightfully so. But increasingly, third-party relationships are introducing risks that require a unique approach to risk management.
Partner organisations, including integration vendors, service providers, channel resellers or other external entities with system access, each come with a unique risk profile. Depending on their level of access to your internal systems (which is often more than CISOs realise), a vulnerability in a partner environment can quickly translate into a direct security incident for your organisation.
We see this happen all the time. One particularly alarming recent example is the 2025 Oracle Cloud breach, where vulnerabilities in a core service provider exposed hundreds of organisations at once.
The way CISOs can address this is by starting to treat third-party risk as an extension of their own environment, rather than a separate entity. Identify why and to what extent partners have access to which systems. All third-party activity must be justified and carefully controlled via access policies and monitoring to prevent any unnecessary exposure.
Patch management is another important component of dealing with third-party risk, as software vulnerabilities are go-to ways for attackers to gain initial access. Patching responsibilities should be clearly defined.
Make sure you have all types of controls covered
A common mistake CISOs make is going in too heavily on a specific category of controls. The vast majority of budgets go into preventive controls like firewalls and EDR systems, assuming that stopping attacks at the perimeter or endpoint is enough. However, there are other types of controls that are equally important.
Preventive controls reduce the likelihood of an incident, but detective controls are essential for identifying malicious activity when prevention fails. A lot of times, new attack techniques do not raise any alarms with signature-based IPS or anti-virus tools.
Corrective controls are also a must in the event of security incidents, as they provide a clear path to remediation, which may include removing malware, isolating hosts or restoring systems after a breach.
Finally, compensating controls should be in place to address gaps when primary controls are not possible or feasible. These controls are particularly important for third-party risk management in situations where the organisation has a limited ability to enforce direct measures.
Conclusion
Security controls are the backbone of every cyber security programme. Without them, there is no way to effectively translate a security strategy into real-world cyber resilience. But just having controls in place is not enough. They have to be dynamic and match the continuously evolving attack surface of the organisation as the environment and threat landscape change.
Moving beyond static controls will be a key challenge for CISOs heading into 2026 and beyond, and taking the right steps now will ensure long-lasting cyber resilience and risk reduction.
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